


The Inside Man

by Canaan



Series: How It Could Have Happened [13]
Category: Torchwood
Genre: Angst, Character Study, Dubious Consent, F/M, Introspection, M/M, Missing Scene
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-02-16
Updated: 2011-02-16
Packaged: 2017-10-15 17:34:44
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,430
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/163193
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Canaan/pseuds/Canaan
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"I knew what I'd been offering.  I'd known, every step of the way."  Angst and dub!con.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Inside Man

**Author's Note:**

> I apologize in advance. I was trying not to write this, but Ianto showed up in my head in first person and was damned persistent. Spoilers for _Cyberwoman_ , _Something Borrowed_ , _Fragments_ , and _CoE: Day 5_. Beta'd by Mimarie and Yamx. Disclaimer: Auntie Beeb and RTD own all of them. I wouldn't have come up with anything this f*#$ed-up on my own.

I knew.

I knew the only place I could hide Lisa while I found someone who could really _help_ her--not just keep her alive with some cobbled-together equipment--was another facility with the kind of security umbrella Torchwood One had. UNIT was too dangerous and I couldn't think how to get Lisa out of the country. Torchwood Two was a suspicious little man. All I really knew about Torchwood Three was that there weren't more than half a dozen of them and they'd stopped reporting to Director Hartman years ago. It gave me better odds than Torchwood Two, and really, the latter could almost be considered a matter of good taste.

I knew I didn't have much time. The power consumption of Lisa's life support would become impossible to hide soon, and when UNIT and the sad little remains of the Torchwood Institute finished bickering over who got to pick the bones of the Canary Wharf facility, they'd be looking for any loose ends. Two junior researchers, one badly injured? I'd wake up beside Lisa's grave, with a bottle of brandy and the inside of my mouth tasting like old socks, knowing _exactly_ what I'd been doing with the last few weeks of my life.

If Lisa was actually _in_ the grave, she'd be lucky.

Torchwood Three's director had an obscure military rank and a reputation as a cold-blooded bastard when it came to defending the Earth. I'd never been a field agent, but I'd had some basic training when I started on with Torchwood One--it was a requirement. Just helping run down a weevil wasn't enough to impress Director Harkness. What it did was put me on his radar. He was thinking about me--probably thinking that I wasn't worth much, but thinking about me, regardless. I had his attention; now I had to change his opinion while I still had a chance.

Most of Torchwood One's resources had lived on servers somewhere, and no one had bothered to revoke my accesses, yet--they were probably still sorting the quick from the dead. By morning, I knew that Captain Harkness had a bit of Han Solo somewhere in his family tree. I knew how he took his coffee and that he didn't drink in public. I knew that he was vain. He had a reputation a kilometre wide--and regardless of that, none of his staff had ever filed a sexual harassment complaint about him. The more I looked, the more complicated he became, but he was the gatekeeper: No one else could get me in the door.

I knew I was taking a risk when I went courting Han Solo. I grew up with boors. You put up with their shit, you picked up after them, and you tried to prove yourself. It never took, but that was part of the process. _Look at me--I'm a maid. Look at me--I'm a sidekick! Look at me: the master tailor's son, inoffensive, convenient, and not at all memorable. Look at me, but never_ see _me._

Not only was Captain Harkness not having any, the harder I pushed, the more I could see that glass with the retcon in it headed my way. I'd tried reasoning with him and I'd got the rogue who thought with his gut and his heart. I'd tried appealing to the rogue and I'd got the intellectual assessment that I wanted inside too much.

But I knew where he made his mistakes.

I knew what I was going to have to do. I went looking for something that would really get his attention. All sorts of unusual things washed ashore in Cardiff through the space-time rift. I found a pterodactyl. That was good--the Captain liked a challenge.

I dusted off my old Torchwood One suits and thanked God I hadn't lost enough weight to worry that they looked baggy. I put on the master tailor's son like a costume--the clown's painted smile that hid the sleepless nights watching Lisa, the way food sat like lead in my stomach, and the questions about how far I might have to carry this through. When I looked at him in the mirror, I wondered if his father had ever called him a nancy-boy.

It didn't matter. The Captain liked a challenge.

I knew what I was offering. It was an intellectual exercise, to wonder if a hand was a hand and a mouth was a mouth, regardless of who it was attached to. It was better, I even thought, that Torchwood Three's director was a man. I wasn't sure I could have contemplated a seduction, could have braced myself for something physical, if I felt like I were cheating on Lisa.

It was never attraction. There was that ridiculous moment where the fucking pterodactyl dropped him on me and we were both glad to be alive and I knew he'd at least noticed the bait, and . . . He was warm. It felt good to be that close to someone, _anyone_ , warm and alive.

I knew that a mystery was only intriguing until you figured it out, but a challenge was only a challenge if you felt like you were making progress. Jack's eyes on my arse were the price of admission. He stood too close while he was in the Hub, but while he was out, I smuggled Lisa into one of Torchwood Three's many sub-levels. Quiet flirtation kept him distracted, and a confused, not-quite-uncomfortable grope would buy me a few days of distance at a time, as he tried to figure out what to make of me.

I could handle it. I was in control. I couldn't find the kind of specialist Lisa needed in Europe, but I was moving on to the States. Somewhere out there, someone with an interest in cutting edge technology and a background in medicine would be able to heal her. I knew it. I knew it. I knew.

I knew she was worried about me. I knew she'd never understand that yes, she really _was_ that important. And yes, a hand was a hand and a mouth was a mouth, and I was in danger of becoming the stereotype of the PA shagging the boss and I didn't want that. But if I couldn't avoid it, that was okay: Lisa was worth it.

I didn't stop to think how it would look to Jack. I didn't know he even thought about it--after all, if he'd been thinking with something other than his cock, he would never have let me into the Hub in the first place. I lost track of whether I was letting him seduce me, or whether he was letting me seduce him.

Lisa got worse. I had charge of all the ordering for Torchwood Three, so it was easy to hide the morphine that kept her pain bearable. A Torchwood salary bought suits that hid the weight loss. Nothing hid the tension, the feeling of being drawn taut as a bow string. Jack rubbed my neck, and I pretended I wanted him to, and I pretended feeling better didn't feel like betraying her.

I ended up in a bed, in a room I didn't know, wearing a persona I didn't know. I knew it wouldn't hurt--a man with Jack's reputation would know how to make sure it wouldn't hurt. I wished that his hands . . . and his mouth . . . didn't feel good, but it made it easier to play the role. "Do you want . . . ?" the master tailor's son asked, while I hid behind his eyes and let him play the aggressor and reminded myself that it was okay, it was for Lisa.

Jack's chuckle was warm and deep and affectionate. "I wouldn't dream of it," he said. He put his mouth close to my ear and told me what he would, in fact, dream of.

It was a room I didn't know and a Jack I didn't know. I knew what I'd been offering. I'd known, every step of the way.

I didn't know that he'd be hot and tight and under me, that he'd moan and beg and it really would be sex, when it wasn't more like anger or despair. I didn't know he'd be tender as he cleaned cum off both our skins with a hotel flannel. I didn't know how good it would feel to be held afterward. It could have been anyone, but it wasn't Lisa, and it had been so long . . .

"Ianto--are you okay? Why are you crying?"

The painted clown-face smiled. I whispered, "I don't know."


End file.
